Who's Pitching for the Rangers?

Edgar: "Who's pitching for the Rangers tonight?"


Horace: "Yu."


Edgar: "I'm not pitching.  I'm just a fan of the Rangers."


Horace: "I know."


Edgar: "OK then, who's pitching then."


Horace: "Yu."


Edgar: "A wise guy, eh?


(insert more back forth here, a la the Abbott and Costello bit)


Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: No pitcher from Japan since Nomo has even come close to living up to the expectations placed on them.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Yu Darvish is, according to most if not all the talking heads, far better than any pitcher ever to come over from Japan.  7 different pitches, 5 quality pitches.  If he's half as good as the hype he'll be good to pretty darn good.  If he lives up to the hype he might be the Rangers first 20 game winner since 1998.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Prince Fielder is off the market, signing with the Tigers.  Oh well.  It was nice to hope for another big off season splash by your Texas Rangers.

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SH!T

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: So our cross continent rivals get CJ and Poo-Holes?!?!?


Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: As someone just told me, the Halos saddle themselves with kinda Tom Hicks salary in a vain effort to hang on to relevance.


Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Are we strong up the middle?  Yes, yes it most certainly is.  Josh, Elvis, Ian and Napoli.  Plus, I hope we still have a dude named Gentry that runs like lightening so Josh can move over to left and not kill himself by running into center field walls all over ballparks in America.  And our starting staff is looking like Dutch Oven, Cobra Lewis, Ogando, Matty Harrison and maybe Neftali Feliz?  And we still have Scooter Feldman that was looking strong last postseason?  Yeah, OK I can deal with this.  And didn't we sign a closer recently, albeit coming off an injury?

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So What Did I Miss?

I saw most of the regular season games and each game of the postseason games.  I even got to go to the ALCS game 6 when the Rangers clinched to go the their second straight WS.  Back during spring training I got busy with other stuff and before I knew it the Rangers were ahead in the division.  So, I sat back and enjoyed the ride and didn't worry about blogging about it, until now I guess.

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Up to game 6 of the WS I thought my "plan" of not blogging and therefore not jinxing the Rangers was working.  2 outs and 2 strikes away for winning the WS.  In consecutive innings.  I can barely write, think, talk about it even now.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: 2 WS appearances in a row?!?!?  What a ride.  Please let us ride the roller coaster again next year.

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: So close.  I am trying not to get spoiled and remember when Chan Ho Park was the "ace" of the staff and A-Fraud was hitting meaningless homers in 11-3 blowout wins and losses on the way to a meaningless MVP for him while the Rangers finished last in their division.

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How To Not Start Spring Trading/Training

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: Really Michael Young?  Do you not understand you absolutely drove down your trade value to nothing by going to the press and demanding to be traded?  You're 34 years old now, not 26.  And this is supposedly the post-steroid era meaing that 34 is now old again in baseball years.  Plus, you weren't that great at 3rd base last year (see playoff defensive lowlights).  Why not be happy being a part time DH/utility player and cashing that huge paycheck?

As usual the pitching is being questioned.  Can CJ and Cobra Lewis and Tommy Hunter do it again?  Is Feliz ready to be a starter?  Who's going to close?  Was Webb worth it?

And so long to Benjie Molina and Big Bad Vlad.

Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Can you say defending American League Champion Texas Rangers?  Weird huh?  But, awesome. 

Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: It seems like everyone else in the division got better.  I don't know if the same can be said for the Rangers.

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